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Microbiology > Classification of Microorganisms > Flashcards

Classification of Microorganisms Flashcards

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Biology 101 flashcards
1
Q

What is taxonomy?

A

The science of classifying organisms

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2
Q

Two advantages of taxonomy?

A

Provides universal names for organisms and provides a reference for identifying organisms

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3
Q

Who is the ‘father of taxonomy’?

A

Carl Linnaeus

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4
Q

What two major ideas did Carl Linnaeus come up with?

A

Scientific nomenclature and natural classification

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5
Q

What is scientific nomenclature?

A

The naming of organisms, 1st part is the genus and the second part is the species name

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6
Q

What is phylogeny?

A

The study of the evolutionary history of organisms

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7
Q

What is hierarchy?

A

A hierarchy is an organizational structure in which items are ranked according to levels of importance.

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8
Q

What is a taxon?

A

A group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit.

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9
Q

The hierarchy of taxa reflects…

A

Phylogenetic relationships

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10
Q

What is natural classification?

A

The theory of grouping species according to shared physical traits

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11
Q

What did Linnaeus propose as the Kingdoms?

A

Animalia, Vegetabilia and Minerals

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12
Q

What was the main downfall of natural classification proposed by Linnaeus?

A

Bacteria and archaea not considered by Linnaeus

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13
Q

Where did Nageli propose that bacteria should be placed?

A

In the plant kingdom - led to the term microflora

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14
Q

Who introduced the Protista kingdom?

A

Haeckel - grouped bacteria, protozoa, fungi and algae in to protista

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15
Q

Chatton came up with two kingdoms, prokaryota and eukaryota in 1937, why?

A

He used electron microscopy and distinguished between nucleated and non-nucleated cells

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16
Q

Before Carl Woese, what was used to classify bacteria?

A

Physical traits such as shape, number of cells, gram staining, growth temperature range, etc.

17
Q

What did Carl Woese propose?

A

Five kingdoms, Bacteira, Archaebacteria, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia originally. Then elevated Domains above kingdoms

18
Q

Who came up with the three domains and what are they?

A

Carl Woese - Eukaryotes, Archaea and Bacteria

19
Q

What does Woese’s classification emphasise?

A

The difference between bacteria and archaea

20
Q

How did Woese come to separate bacteria and archaea?

A

Based on the observation that ribosomes are not the same in all cells

21
Q

What did Woese do differently in classification?

A

He based the split on genetic rather than morphological traits

22
Q

What did Woese analyse?

A

Small subunit ribosomal RNA from various organisms 16S for prokaryotes and 18S for eukaryotes

23
Q

What does SSU rRNA stand for?

A

Small subunit ribosomal RNA

24
Q

What does SSU rRNA encode?

A

Encode for RNA molecules used in translation of nucleic acid

25
Q

SSU rRNA can be used because it is present in…

A

All cells

26
Q

What is special about SSU rRNA?

A

Allows you to compare all living organisms with each other

27
Q

Why is SSU rRNA essential for life?

A

If you lose the ability to synthesise proteins, the organism dies

28
Q

Explain what the yellow region in the diagram shows

A

Highlighted in yellow are the sequences that are conserved throughout history - no mutations in these regions, so yellow regions must have to do with the function of SSU rRNA

29
Q

Explain what the blue regions show

A

Differences in the SSU rRNA code, direct comparisons can be made between different organisms.

30
Q

How does SSU rRNA serve as a molecular clock?

A

Measures the evolutionary relatedness of sequences

31
Q

The more genetic differences between two sequences…

A

The less related they are

32
Q

Why do sequences for housekeeping genes make good molecular clocks?

A

Found in all/most organisms and they are under functional pressure to aquire few mutations

33
Q

What is the function of the diagram?

A

Provide quantitative data to construct a phylogenetic tree

34
Q

What do phylogenetic trees show?

A

Phylogenetic trees show evolutionary relationships among different biological species that are believed to have a common ancestor

35
Q

Woese’s work lead to eight taxonomic rankings, they are…

A

Domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species (King Philip came over for great spaghetti)

36
Q

Two problems with single gene analysis (e.g. SSU rRNA)?

A
  1. Lack of divergence between two very closely related sequences can limit effectiveness at distinguishing two organisms.
  2. Fails to account for lateral gene transfer
37
Q

How to overcome the two issues bought about by single gene analysis?

A

Multi-gene or entire genome comparisons could be made

38
Q

Medical importance of phylogenetics?

A

Pathogenic bacteria isolated from the patient. Compare characteristics to traits from previously classified bacteria. Guides treatment.

Microbiology (18 decks)

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